Music and people hold my life together. I describe experiences, discoveries and insights, often connected with music and with teaching and playing piano. The blog is a way to stay in touch with friends, and may also be food for thought for anyone else, especially people connected with music and the piano/
Musik und Menschen halten mein Leben zusammen. Ich beschreibe Erfahrungen, Entdeckungen und Einsichten, oft in Zusammenhang mit dem Klavierspiel und dem Klavierunterricht.

Saturday, October 13, 2018

We’ve had a community recital for piano students in
Maplewood/South Orange for more than twenty years. Last Sunday, though, it was Teachers’ Turn -, for the first time
ever. Thirteen local piano teachers gave a true variety-show of repertoire,
demonstrating the versatility of the instrument: from classical to jazz, popular
music, improvisation, original compositions, accompanying and duets. The
program featured composers from Mozart to Dizzy Gillespie, and the committee
that organized the concert (Tricia Tunstall, Elizabeth Burnett, Kathy
Allen-Roth and Vicki Carter) arranged it in a most appealing fashion. Financial
contributions to the concert go to the Maplewood Community Music/Piano
Teachers’ Consortium Scholarship Fund to provide private music study for
talented public school students in the school district.

The Program

Not all teachers get to perform in public very often. Demonstrating
for a student in the sheltered atmosphere of a teaching studio is very
different from facing an audience in a concert space. That requires an extra
portion of courage. Maxine Giannini, who still runs a busy studio at age 89,
revealed to the audience that she had never performed solo in public before. Her
teacher, Clara Husserl – who had studied in Vienna with Leschetizky - didn’t
think performing was necessary for a student who showed exceptional talent for
teaching even as a teenager.

Maxine Giannini talks about performing

Maxine’s successful teaching career has done justice to the
assessment, but her performance at the concert on Sunday was a real gift to the
audience. The previous week, she had played Chopin’s Nocturne in e-minor at the
rehearsal, just to try out the piano. Colleagues who heard her talked her into
performing. Deeply expressive, with beautiful sound, she gave a glimpse at the
musical secrets she reveals to her excellent students, among them Daniel Baer, who joined the
piano faculty of the Music Institute of Chicago last year after earning his
doctorate from Juilliard.

It’s those personal stories that made the concert special
beyond the mere playing. Stephen Wu dedicated his performance of Chopin’s etude
in E-major to his late father, who still responded to the piece when he was on
life support shortly before his passing.

In addition to his own pieces, Jazz pianist Dan Crisci performed two
pieces his wife Virginia Johnston composed way back in college. Those expressive,
interesting pieces deserved to be heard more often. In honor of my teacher, I
had chosen three pieces from Seymour Bernstein’s 2nd
Book of Birds: The Swan, The Owl and Phoenix – imaginative, colorful pieces that require special sound
effects. “You should pay a fee for extra wear of the piano” one of my
colleagues joked, after I slammed the fallboard at the end of the Phoenix, as
requested by the score.

Tricia Tunstall tells the story of the piano

That brings us to the real star of the show and the ultimate
reason for the concert: the gorgeous Yamaha concert grand. The piano that stood
at De Hart Center until now left so much to be desired that we no longer held
the annual community recital for our students there. Tricia Tunstall, a
long time Maplewood resident and piano teacher witha big heart for music in the community, suggested to acquire the concert
grand for the center as soon as she found out that it was for sale. She started
a fund raising campaign and thanks to her initiative and many generous donations,
the concert grand has now found its home at the De Hart Center in Maplewood. It’s
a delightful instrument to play and listen to. Teachers’ Turn was a great start of its new career: bringing people
together to share the joy of music.

Monday, August 20, 2018

The morning after my return from the piano festival in Minneapolis I was
sitting at the kitchen table, writing the blog entry, when a cheerful male voice
caught my attention: ”Hello, hello?” It was a hot day, and I had the windows
open. I thought the call came from the house next door. But Genie Ramses and
Siddhartha were restlessly prancing around the kitchen and bushing their
tails. That’s always a reason to check things out.

Kind of like this

I got up, opened the door to the living room and found
myself face to face with a middle-aged couple. “Oh my God, she’s home” – the
already familiar voice exclaimed. And thus, I was introduced to the new owners
of the house where I live.

I’ve known for more than a year that the house was going to
be sold. The realtor and the former landlord both knew I was in Minneapolis for
five days. We even had some communication while I was away. I was aware that
negotiations were nearing the end. Carried away by the excitement of finally
completing the deal, the parties involved unfortunately failed to inform the
live inventory that inhabits the second floor.

I’ll skip the details of the communication that followed.
They did include a consultation with a lawyer, which yielded information on my
current situation. I’m still here, and I don’t have to move out, either. That’s
all in the past now, so I’ll move on to the present: the beginning of my fifth
week, living on top of a building site.

The downstairs in transition

Did I say building site? Before building comes demolition.
Some mornings I’ve woken up because my bed was shaking from the blows of the
wrecking crew, who is gutting the basement and the apartment on the first
floor. I’m usually up before they arrive shortly after 8 am, but it’s vacation!
I want some peace and quiet, damn it!!!

- a captivating
quartet, involving the “earthquake machine” - acoustically moderate, too
bad the recording doesn’t capture the vibration – followed by hammering and sawing
accompanied by random “gunshots” from the stapler.

Dumpster in the driveway. You can't produce that much rubble in silence.

It’s not like that non-stop every day from 8 am to 6 pm. But
some days it is, and you never know when it’s going to happen. Things happen
that are much worse: people fall ill, they die, they get killed, fall victim to
accidents and natural disaster. People live on the street, while I still have a
roof over my head at a rent well below market value – as of now. The current
situation would be worse, if the crew started at 7 am. But do they have to work
seven days a week?

There’s no shortage of escapes: the library, the building of
the Ethical Culture Society, which even has a piano. Friends have invited me
over. But this is my home. Worse than the noise is the feeling of being
steamrolled. The feeling is inside of me, and I’m the only one who can change
it.

It did change when I recorded the noise. Nuisance turned
into creative material. Recording device
on constant alert, I found myself waiting for a particular machine to go into
action. Each of them has a distinct personality. The sequences have patterns. Limited
and considerably stronger on the percussive than on the melodic side, some musical
potential cannot be denied. It could inspire an avant-garde composition, but I
already know I wouldn’t ever want to listen to in a concert venue.

My best friend remains the piano. Who knows which surprises
new housemates will bring, once the rubble downstairs has been cleared and the
construction site transformed into rental space?

While that is still in the making, no one complains about me
spending the day at the piano. The freedom to do that dissipates my anger over
the disruption – not always, not completely, but enough to make it
bearable.Schubert’s Fantasy-Sonata
overpowers the mayhem, and the universal order of Bach’s music rises above the
chaos. If the day starts with the Well-Tempered Clavier, what can go wrong?

Sunday, July 22, 2018

The 10-day Young Artists’ World Piano
Festival is an excellent opportunity for pre-college pianists to
immerse themselves in playing piano, to broaden their musical experience and share
it with like-minded companions. Students may be as young as eight and come with
their parents, or they may be in high school, aspiring to be professional
musicians and prepare to audition at a major music school. All students are
supported at their respective levels, resulting in a joyful, vibrant community.
The program offers private lessons with a distinguished faculty, and musicianship-
and studio classes for everybody. Participating in master classes, a
solo-performance – and a concerto competition are opportunities for advanced
students who want to challenge themselves.

Seymour Bernstein was one of the guest artists this year.
Observing my teacher teach was a most inspiring experience.

Time disappears, as he works with a young student whose
piece ends with a single, very soft note. It takes a certain motion to create
that sound, and it’s not easy. The key has to be lowered very slowly. But if
it’s too slow, the hammer won’t hit the string and the note won’t speak. If
it’s too fast, it comes out too loud, and the piece ends with an ugly clunk.

Seymour’s voice is soft, but intense. His clear instructions
and infinite patience create a safe, intimate space on the concert stage of the
vast auditorium at Bethel University. The
task absorbs both teacher and student. “Did you like that sound” he asks the
student. She shakes her head. “Well, then try it again.”

Private lessons in the auditorium

It’s fashionable to talk about “flow” these days. Seymour
doesn’t talk about it. He takes the student through the experience. Yes, one
note can be important enough to spend a considerable part of the lesson on it.
It takes as long as it takes. There are no shortcuts.

Mechanics alone won’t achieve the goal. “Your technique
allows you to play anything you want,” he comments after a young virtuoso’s
stunning performance of Chopin’s Scherzo in c-sharp minor.“But your interpretation is shallow; it
doesn’t mean anything.” That’s a harsh verdict. It could hurt a student, unless
the teacher shows him how to do otherwise. Together, they set out to mine the
score for meaning.

“Chopin’s Scherzos are emotional dramas,” Seymour explains.
“The beginning is spooky. If you don’t play it right, you won’t get a feeling
for the piece. Feel the f going to f-sharp. How will you shape it? Which one of
the three motives is the spookiest? The chords are a call to arms, they have to
sound angry.”

How do you make a chord sound angry? Prepare it with a swing
stroke and lower the arm into the key, rather than bounce off of it. A phase of
experimentation follows.Once the
student has figured out how to do it, decisions have to be made. How do the
chords relate to each other? Which one marks the peak of the phrase; it has to
be the strongest.

Demonstrating a motion

At first, it’s about the direction and the speed of the
motion, the arm, the wrist and the fingers that transfer the energy into the
key. In the process of trying, those elements merge with the sound they create
and become an imprint in your mind. Making
a physical connection to musical feeling,Seymour calls it. You have to
observe what you’re doing and listen into yourself. The sound that expresses
how you feel the music resides inside. It can’t be imposed.

The change that’s achieved is almost magical. “This student
is seething with emotion,” Seymour comments later. Sometimes, it’s easier to
hide behind your skill than share what you really feel. It takes courage, and
before that, encouragement.

The master class as a group experience. All students play their pieces first, as in a concert,
so that performance anxiety doesn't get in the way of attention while Seymour works with them afterwards.

The score is projected on a screen. That way, everybody can follow explanations

“Why do you play the piano?” No master class ends without a
discussion of that question. Playing concerts, winning competitions, even
launching a successful performing career doesn’t guarantee happiness or even
satisfaction. The lasting benefit of playing a musical instrument is the integration
of emotion, reason and physicality. You train this every time you practice.
Applied to life, it becomes the key to fulfillment.

Discussion at the end of the master class

After the discussion, there’s often the encore, the surprise,
when Seymour shares something special from his life, an experience, a photo, a
piece of music that has moved him deeply.

Leopold Mozart about his little son's first composition

“I hope I won’t break out into tears when I share this with you,” he says, before he reads Leopold Mozart’s comments about little Wolfgang’s first composition: “Wolfgang composed and learnt this little Minuet within half an hour the day before his 5th birthday." That a child this young could compose a melody that is so beautiful…”

W.A. Mozart, Minuet and Trio in G-major K1

Seymour goes to the concert grand that stands in the
spotlight center stage. After a master class program that featured brilliant
performances of Chopin’s Scherzo No 3,
the first movement of Beethoven’s Waldstein
Sonata, and Liszt’s Harmonies du Soir,
he plays W.A. Mozart’s Minuet and Trio in G-major K1. Every single note is
shaped with the love and care deserving of a masterpiece - a demonstration of
humility by a master, who has preserved his awe and reverence of beauty
throughout all the years he’s been living with it.